HN321, known by the cover name 'Bill Lewis’, joined Special Branch in April or May 1968 and was initially assigned to B Squad, which monitored various left-wing groups and campaigns. In September 1968, he joined the newly formed Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), where he says he was tasked with infiltrating the International Marxist Group (IMG) and reported on the Lambeth branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC). His cover identity was an instrumentation and control technician and he drove a van, which he used to transport activists and IMG publications.
Lewis’ reports and witness statement to the Inquiry show that he regularly attended public and private meetings of Lambeth VSC and the IMG as well as demonstrations, including the 27 October 1968 anti-Vietnam war mass demonstration. He was occasionally asked to respond to information requests from MI5 and at one point met a Security Service agent in a pub with Conrad Dixon.
Lewis’ reports included details of internal group dynamics, planned actions, group numbers and, on one occasion, 80 names and addresses of IMG members, which Dixon told him MI5 was very pleased about. After attending an IMG summer camp in Scotland, in mid-1969 Lewis told SDS managers his identity was suspected and it was time for his deployment to finish. He made up a story about moving abroad and decreased participation.
Senior officers were keen for Lewis to introduce a replacement undercover, but he said the fact he was already under suspicion made this inadvisable. His last report on the IMG disclosed by the Inquiry is from 25 August 1969.
Unless otherwise noted, the information in this profile comes from Lewis’s written statement to the Inquiry. He now lives abroad and was not asked to give oral testimony at an Inquiry hearing.
Lewis joined Special Branch in April or May 1968, where he was placed in B Squad. He attended meetings and demonstrations in plain clothes as part of the squad’s routine work monitoring left-wing activity. While with B Squad, Lewis was assigned to monitor a public meeting of a radical group and submitted a report on a speech given there.
That Lewis was able to gather so much information impressed his detective inspector, who recommended he should attend a forthcoming meeting about the SDS. He was therefore at the meeting to announce the creation of the Special Demonstration Squad called by HN325 Conrad Dixon.
Lewis placed the founding meeting in September 1968 as this was when he formally joined the SDS, but this is a mistake – the meeting took place in July. He recalled:
I was single in my 20s... with no responsibilities and the work sounded exciting, so I volunteered.
Lewis continued at B Squad until he joined the SDS on 18 September 1968. This is noted in Dixon’s paper, 'Penetration of Extremist Groups' , which also lists Lewis’s targets as Lambeth Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and the International Marxist Group.
As with all the undercovers and managers in the first batch of SDS recruits, there was no real understanding of how to undertake the work or how it would impact them. As such, it was left to Lewis’s discretion to get the intelligence his bosses wanted: 'We were all self-taught and lived on our wits'.
Though he recalled exchanging experiences with other undercovers in conversation, the only guidance Lewis recalled being given was that if he ended up being arrested, he should go along with it and maintain his cover, and that things would be sorted out afterwards.
Lewis explained he had quite a lot of free time during the day, with most infiltration taking place in the evenings or at weekends. This led to him taking up a hobby, which he would do before arriving at the SDS safe house at around 10am, where he would often stay until the late afternoon if there were no evening meetings to attend.
At the safehouse there were weekly meetings with HN325 Conrad Dixon. There, undercovers reported back and learned what intelligence the police were looking for; sometimes Dixon questioned them about specific incidents in which he was interested.
A sergeant in the back office, HN3093 Roy Creamer , gave informative evidence on SDS processes in these early days. He said that when undercovers were not out spying, Dixon liked to keep them busy at the SDS flat, though he would sometime let them go home early.
At the safehouse, undercovers spent time together, including eating meals or going out for a social event. Lewis recalls attending the safe house several times a week.
Tradecraft
Lewis came up with his own cover name, 'William Paul Lewis' shortened to 'Bill', and pretended to have a job as 'an instrumentation and control technician'. As part of his cover, he had a flat in Earl’s Court and later Acton in west London, which he obtained for himself through newspaper adverts. Lewis recalls someone from the Home Office turning up at the safehouse to give them cash to cover their rent and other expenses.
In common with almost all other SDS undercovers, Lewis dressed down to blend in with his target group, which for him included growing his hair and a moustache and regularly having stubble.
He also had a vehicle which he used as part of his cover, offering to transport the activists he was spying on. This included driving IMG members to an education camp in Scotland and delivering the group's newsletters to a post office when its van broke down.
Lewis wrote in his witness statement that the International Marxist Group (IMG) had been his only target, but he also reported extensively on the Lambeth branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) , which had a large number of IMG members.
At the start of his deployment Lewis said he was given a leaflet for a demonstration, probably by his manager, and told to mix with protestors there. Following the demonstration he was invited to a meeting, which he attended, becoming aware towards the end that it was an IMG event.
Given the timing and SDS interest, it is more likely that Bill Lewis was attending a meeting of the Lambeth VSC, which was dominated by the IMG. Lewis reported this to HN325 Conrad Dixon , who said the IMG was on the list of organisations of interest to the SDS and told him to go to further meetings. Lewis recalled:
I had a lot of discretion as to what to report on bearing in mind the overall objective of public order. No one knew how to run an undercover squad at that time. There was very little direction either verbal or written. Conrad might have said: 'If you hear about a certain person or group let me know', but there was no direction beyond that and nothing in writing.
However, Lewis was given clear direction when the IMG split at the start of 1969 and told to stay close to the larger, more militant faction.
Lewis' first report disclosed by the Inquiry is of a meeting on 18 September 1968 organised by the IMG, at which Fred Halstead, a socialist candidate for the US presidency, spoke. The date of the report matches when Lewis officially joined the SDS and is signed by SDS manager Conrad Dixon and HN3093 Roy Creamer meaning it most likely comes from the SDS.
It is hard to say whether the Halstead meeting was Lewis’ first SDS deployment. It shows, however, that even at this early stage, the SDS was casting its net wide. It is notable, for example, that Lewis’ report includes no mention of the upcoming 27 October 1968 demonstration, for which the SDS had supposedly formed to gather intelligence. It shows the degree to which Special Branch targeted and reported on socialists of all stripes, regardless.
Lambeth Vietnam Solidarity Campaign
Lewis had little to say about his time in Lambeth VSC, other than to note that it was very loosely organised and more of an umbrella group including members of the International Socialists (IS) , Young Communist League (YCL) and anarchists. At the time it was one of ten London VSC branches dominated by the IMG, Lewis’ main target.
The branch was mentioned in the SDS weekly report of 30 August 1968, which stated that the attitudes of the rank and file in the branches were ‘extremely militant’. On 21 September 1968, the branch leafleted Brixton, one of the leaflets finding its way to Peckham police station, which in turn sent it to Special Branch.
It was referred to Dixon who wrote on the Peckham memo that the leaflet was being given to Lewis to submit as part of his report on the event, described as a meeting, indicating his presence there. A uniformed police report of the day notes that advance intelligence that there would be an event had been passed on and described the day as ‘a trivial meeting unsupported and ignored by the public’.
A copy of that report was sent to Dixon who marked it for Bill Lewis to note. This latter point is curious as it implies that SDS undercovers were being fed back material on events they had attended. There is no report from Lewis about the 21 September demonstration, which was discussed in a Lambeth VSC meeting on 26 September 1968, when it was noted that police tactics and roadworks made it only partially successful, though 1,500 leaflets had been distributed.
Once contact was made, Lewis' entry into the VSC was swift. In September 1968, the branch held regular meetings at the Duke of Cambridge pub, Kennington Lane/Durham Street, Stockwell, South West London. On 24 September, the superintendent at Kennington police station called Special Branch and left a telegram to this effect with undercover HN323 Helen Crampton.
Notes written on the telegram record that Dixon called the superintendent back on the same day and Lewis was assigned to cover the meetings. Given that Lewis was deployed on Wednesday 18 September, he would have had a chance to report back on the Thursday 19 September meeting, though there is no report disclosed for this.
Between September 1968 and March 1969, Lewis continued to spy on the VSC, including the Lambeth branch and the South West London Ad Hoc Committee. In his 3 October 1968 weekly report on preparations for the October 27 1968 anti-Vietnam war protest, Dixon noted that a South West London Ad Hoc Committee was being formed to raise support and awareness of the planned demonstration. It is clear this intelligence came from Bill Lewis.
By the weekly report of 16 October, the South West London Ad Hoc Committee was listed as being formally recognised. The same report noted that Lambeth VSC ‘attacked’ MI6’s headquarters at Century House on Westminster Bridge Road with stickers, suggesting intelligence from Bill Lewis, though there is no corresponding report.
The heart of the South West London Ad Hoc Committee was Lambeth VSC, whose leading lights included the IMG’s Al Richardson, see below, who acted as the point of contact and chaired some of its meetings in October 1968.
Dixon’s weekly report of 16 October 1968 named 45 people considered leaders of the anti-Vietnam war movement, including Richardson, Alan and Connie Harris, Ernest Tate and Jess McKenzie – all leading IMG members associated in the reports with the Lambeth VSC branch.
Lewis’ attendance at Lambeth VSC meetings appeared to be regular. He turned up to the 3 October meeting at the Queens Head pub, Stockwell Road. A planned street meeting on 5 October at Comyn Road SW11 was noted as being covered, presumably by Lewis.
It was the same for the 10 October meeting, where a planned leafleting that weekend in Tooting was scheduled to be covered by the SDS, presumably meaning Lewis. It was at this meeting that Richardson’s Karl Marx pub crawl was discussed as a fundraiser, see below.
Much of the reporting focused on discussions about national organisation and awareness-raising. There was little relating to tactics that would have implications for public order, other than numbers; that accommodation would be needed for 200 people coming from Glasgow for the 27 October demonstration, for example.
The only mentions of public-order issues were in relation to demonstrations on 19 and 20 October, where Lambeth VSC members recommended marchers carry poles as a barrier to prevent police trying to arrest people and that, should the police try to split them into smaller groups, efforts be made to push forward to stay together.
This should be contrasted with Lewis’ account in his written statement to the Inquiry that he ‘frequently’ witnessed disorder as an SDS officer, though he apportioned blame for this to anarchists, whose groups he did not infiltrate. He was clear, though, that overall the IMG was peaceful in intent and actions.
Dixon’s 9 October 1968 weekly report contained reporting of plans for criminal damage, which had clearly come from Lewis:
Lambeth V.S.C. are discussing a “two-pronged attack” on Police premises. The suggestion was made at a recent meeting that they cause damage at Tintagel House and enter Vauxhall Garage by night to put sugar in the petrol tanks of Police coaches. Any indication that these plans are to be put into effect will be made subject of a special report.
Given that Lambeth VSC was a broader church than just the IMG, however, it was likely that this reported discussion came from other member groups.
The day before the 27 October demonstration Lewis attended a meeting of the South West Ad Hoc Committee in Brixton. After it, he sent a telegram to Special Branch to say the suggestion had been raised again; that people break into the police car park at Vauxhall to sabotage the coaches there.
This suggestion did not necessarily come from IMG members but possibly from others who came under the umbrella of the VSC branch. No reporting has been found to suggest such an attempt was actually made.
Lewis continued monitoring Lambeth VSC after the 27 October demonstration. He was present at a meeting on 31 October for an informal discussion about the demonstration, at which it was decided that the South West London Ad Hoc Committee would disband but that Lambeth VSC would continue. The report also mentioned a forthcoming Marxist discussion group to be held on 3 November at Balham Road.
Remaining active in the VSC, Lewis was one of five undercovers, including Dixon, to attend the 11 November meeting at Conway Hall for a report-back on the 27 October demonstration. On 20 December 1968, he was back at Conway Hall with HN329 ‘John Graham’ , who targeted the North West London Ad Hoc Committee of the VSC, for a public meeting to mark the founding of the National Liberation Front in Vietnam.
16 March 1969 demonstration
On 6 February 1969, Lewis attended a private meeting of Lambeth VSC to organise for a national demonstration planned for 16 March. Also there were leading IMG members Ernest Tate and Connie Harris, the latter feeding back on a meeting of the National Ad Hoc Committee.
Lewis continued to attend meetings of Lambeth VSC in the run-up to the 16 March demonstration, including a meeting of 13 February where plans were announced for a discussion on what to do during the visit to the UK by US President Richard Nixon.
A ‘comprehensive report’ on the Lambeth VSC branch, requested by a Special Branch chief superintendent in December 1968 and compiled by SDS back-office sergeant HN3095 Bill Furner , was delivered on 18 March 1968. It gave a detailed overview of Lambeth VSC’s composition and a list of its principal members and their addresses, including Connie Harris, Ernest Tate and Al Richardson.
SpecialBranchFiles.uk archives a number of documents relating to the policing of and intelligence-gathering on this protest. There is only one that is SDS-related, from 6 March 1969, in which Dixon reported that a ‘well placed informant’ had stated support for the demo could be as low as 250 people. Lewis is a strong candidate to have been that source, but there were other undercovers still in the VSC at that time.
International Marxist Group
Through Lambeth VSC, Bill Lewis was able to become part of the local IMG group. He believed he was in it for around ten months and that the group would have considered him a member.
However, he did not recollect formally joining the group or becoming close to its inner core. At the time, the IMG worked as a cadre-based organisation, which required activists engage in political education to become full members with decision-making powers.
Lewis participated by turning up for meetings once or twice a week and events at the weekend, including demonstrations, which led to him becoming accepted as a comrade. He remembers going to IMG meetings, often in a pub and usually on a Thursday, ‘where they would discuss the effectiveness of the previous week's demonstration and the planned activities for the next one’.
His vehicle was an important part of his undercover role. At one point when the IMG van broke down Lewis stepped in to transport the IMG newsletter to the post office, an event that seemingly also enabled him to access the list of IMG members and their addresses. He also said he drove several IMG members to the group’s 1969 summer camp.
Lewis believed it was appropriate to target the IMG as Special Branch had an interest in it, because it was ‘part of their Marxist ideology to set up a socialist state’. He also notes that at one point the IMG was of interest because it had ‘fraternal relations with the [Official] IRA, both being Marxist organisations’.
To report on the IMG, the VSC Lambeth branch was ideal, as leading IMG members – particularly Ernest Tate, Connie Harris and Al Richardson – were active in it.
The first direct report on the IMG released by the Inquiry is of a meeting held on 3 November 1968 to discuss the situation in Northern Ireland. Present were Ernie Tate, then prominent in the VSC and in the IMG, and his partner Jess McKenzie.
Tate commented that Lewis’ presence at such a meeting would have led him to assume that the undercover was an IMG member by that time. This is further evidence that after the 27 October 1968 demonstration a decision was taken to have Lewis stay in the field and increase his focus on the IMG.
Throughout 1969 Lewis continued his involvement in the IMG, his reports noting he was one of 30 people who attended a IMG London branch meeting on 14 May that reported back on the ninth congress of the Fourth International. The same day he wrote up notes on an internal meeting of the London branch, that discussed the expulsion of Al Richardson and the state of the IMG generally, including its finances.
This demonstrates the degree to which Lewis got into the group. Although not at its core, he was well-placed enough to hear internal information on how it was doing.
In the summer of 1969, Lewis drove several IMG members to its summer camp, which he referred to in his witness statement as an ‘education camp’ in Scotland. This was held from 26 July-2 August at Ardgarten campsite in Arrochar, Dunbartonshire.
It is unlikely Lewis would have been invited to attend if he had not been considered an IMG member, or at least membership material. Although very active, the IMG consisted of only around 100 individuals.
Lewis' report on this camp set out the lectures given and by whom, with photos of people there and a list of participants. In another report on the summer camp, dated 19 August, he went into detail about the IMG’s internal debate on the issue of Northern Ireland and focused on the activities of IMG activist Pete Gowan.
Lewis’s last report on the IMG disclosed by the Inquiry is dated 25 August 1969 and contains a list of eleven people known to be IMG members.
Al Richardson
Al Richardson , a long-standing and committed Marxist, was a prominent member of both Lambeth VSC and the IMG. He was named in Conrad Dixon’s weekly reports on preparations for the October 1968 Anti-Vietnam war demonstration as a leading member of the VSC. As such he would have been a key target of Lewis’ infiltration.
Lewis said that it was Richardson who had introduced him to the IMG. Reporting on a private meeting of the IMG to discuss the situation in Northern Ireland on 3 November 1968 Lewis wrote: ‘I imagine I was taken along by Alex [sic] Richardson, as he was my main point of contact in the IMG at that time’.
On 12 October 1968, Richardson organised a ‘Karl Marx Memorial Pub Crawl’, commemorating the 150th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth, as a fundraiser for the South West London Ad Hoc Committee.
The event was mentioned in Lewis’ 10 October report on Lambeth VSC, noting: ‘Details... are of doubtful interest to Special Branch.’ In his 17 October report, Lewis nonetheless mentioned that the pub crawl was considered a success.
Throughout October and November 1968, Richardson chaired meetings of Lambeth VSC. In a note attached to one of Lewis’ reports, SDS manager HN1251 Phil Saunders requested that a Special Branch file be opened on Richardson.
This is rare evidence of an SDS manager directly requesting to open a registry file on an individual; it was clearly based on the reporting of Bill Lewis.
Richardson opposed the IMG’s change of focus from the labour movement towards building a base within student politics. This led to him and others splitting from the IMG in 1969, which was recorded by Lewis, who remembers that he was told to stay with the ‘more militant’ majority IMG group, though in reality the split was over a difference in policy rather than tensions over being more radical or militant.
The schism was the subject of a brief Special Branch survey of IMG activity from January to March 1969, which noted that the IMG was ‘embarrassed by the activities of a small opposition group of militants’, who were expelled.
A report on a 6 February 1969 Lambeth VSC meeting recorded that Richardson had resigned as chair of the branch for ‘personal reasons’. On 12 February 1969, Richardson published ‘A Statement on Resignation from the London Branch of the International Marxist Group’, which gave his insights on the Lambeth VSC and provided context to Lewis’ reporting.
Bill Lewis mentioned MI5 a number of times in his witness statement, showing the close links the SDS had with the Security Service via HN325 Conrad Dixon in this early era.
Lewis presumed Dixon's list of groups that interested the SDS came from MI5 and noted that the SDS received requests from the Security Service, including those directed to him:
I recall on occasion getting a query from the Security Service on a specific issue and writing a response back to them... Such requests were not made often. Usually requests from Security Service would come in via Conrad who relayed them verbally during one of our team meetings saying something like: 'Box [MI5] are interested in this or that' and if I knew anything; I would tell Conrad what I knew at that time.
Having used his van to help the IMG to transport a mailout of pamphlets and newsletters to the post office, allowing him to get the addresses of approximately 80 members, Lewis recalled: ‘Conrad later told me that the Security Service were very pleased with that work.’
He also recalled ‘having a meeting with a member of the Security Service in a pub with Conrad once, informally’. Lewis suggested this may have been organised so that MI5 could see what he looked like ‘so that they could identify me for their information (if they had been monitoring the same meetings that I attended and needed to know who was there)’.
According to his statement, in mid-1969 Lewis thought that he had gone as far as he could in his infiltration of the IMG. To do more would have required him to have a greater understanding of Marxism. Reaching this conclusion appears to have coincided with his trip to the IMG summer camp, where he would have been expected to gain both a greater understanding and a bigger role within the group.
He was aware that at least one member of his group was becoming suspicious of him. At the same him he was also tiring of police work generally. To extract himself from the group he began to miss meetings and drop into conversations he had a new job overseas – a tactic he says he, not his managers, came up with.
Lewis discussed this with Dixon, but claims to have planned and worked it out himself. SDS managers wanted him to get someone else into the IMG, but he said it would not work given he was already under suspicion.
After leaving the SDS he simply took a holiday to recover from the work. He left the SDS in August 1969 and, having tired of police work, left the Metropolitan Police altogether shortly after. He retired at the rank of detective constable.
Lawyers for the Metropolitan Police applied to have both HN321’s real and cover names restricted on 26 July 2017, lodging a personal statement, risk assessment and supplementary information in support.
Inquiry Chair John Mitting issued a Minded To notice on 5 August 2017, stating that he planned to release the cover name but keep HN321’s real name secret. HN321’s cover name ‘Bill Lewis’ was published on 5 October 2017.
A hearing about the restriction of his real name took place on 21 November 2017, that disclosed that the former undercover lived outside the UK and had said he would not cooperate with the Inquiry if his real name was published. Mitting ruled on 5 December 2017 that his real name would be the subject of a restriction order and the order was published on 8 December 2017.
Lewis submitted a written statement to the Inquiry on 8 October 2020, which was published on 13 November 2020. He was not asked to give oral testimony during the Tranche One, Phase One Inquiry hearings.
You can access all the documents relating to his involvement in the Inquiry by clicking on the Procedural tab in the Documents section.